AutoRank v2.1.x Installation

  Unix Installation Instructions

NOTICE: These instructions are for a Unix installation. If you are installing the software on an NT server, please see the installnt.html documentation file included with AutoRank.

  1. At this point it is assumed you have extracted the archive containing AutoRank. If you have not yet done so you should do that now.

  2. Now you will want to locate Perl 5 on your server. If you are not sure where to find it, contact your server administrator and ask them. Generally it can be found at /usr/bin/perl or /usr/local/bin/perl

  3. If Perl 5 is located at /usr/bin/perl on your server, you may skip this step. If it is not, you will need to open each of the .cgi files in a text editor such as Notepad. Change the first line of each file to point to Perl 5 on your server. For example, if Perl 5 is at /usr/local/bin/perl, then the first line will be #!/usr/local/bin/perl

  4. You will now need to login to your server and create some directories for AutoRank. First off, decide where you want the .cgi files installed. Generally it is a good idea to keep them in a cgi-bin (or equivalent) directory. Once you have decided where you want the .cgi files, change into that directory. Inside that directory you will need to create 2 subdirectories, one named templates and one named data.

    Now, you need to decide where you want the HTML file written to. This will need to be outside of the cgi-bin directory. Once you have decided where you want them to go, record that information as you will need it later.

    Example Directory Structure:

    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank location of .cgi and .pm files
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank/data location of script data files
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank/templates location of all template files
    /home/username/public_html/autorank where the main HTML file will be generated


  5. Now you are ready to begin uploading the files to your server. VERY IMPORTANT: You must upload ALL of the AutoRank files in ASCII mode, or it will not function properly. If you are not sure how to do this, consult the documentation for your FTP client. If you get a Script Error message saying you may not have stripped the carriage returns, this means you did not upload all the files in ASCII mode - try again.

    Place all of the .cgi and .pm files in the base directory you decided to install the script to. Next, place all of the .htmlt files in the templates directory you created. Finally, upload errors.dat, header.txt and footer.txt to the data directory you created.

  6. Next, you will need to set permissions on the files and directories that AutoRank will be using. If you are not sure how to set permissions, consult the documentation for your FTP client and/or contact your server administrator for more information. Below is a table containing the permissions you will need to set on each file.

    File or Directory Permissions
    All .cgi Files 755
    cgiworks.pm 644
    header.txt 644
    footer.txt 644
    errors.dat 644
    All .htmlt Files 644
    data directory 777
    templates directory 755
    Directory where HTML files will be written 777


    These are only the recommended file permissions, and may need to be altered depending on your server configuration. Once you have all permissions set, continue to the next step.

  7. You are now ready to begin the WWW based portion of the setup. In your browser, type in the full URL to the setup.cgi file on your server. This will bring up the portion of the script where you will set all of the variables. Details and examples for each variable are given, so follow along through that to get all of the variables set properly.

    After you have set all of the variables, enter the default password admin and click the button. If everything went well, you will be presented with a page telling you that the variables have been recorded, and some self tests will be done by the script. If all the tests pass, you are ready to go on. If any of them fail, you will need to check file permissions and directory settings.

  8. You should now be ready to begin using the scripts. The first thing you will want to do is create the ranking page on your server. This should be done by using the rerank.cgi script.

  After Installation Is Complete

Once you have completed the installation you will want to get the list setup and ready to accept new members. Here we will outline the steps you will want to take immediately following the installation.

  1. The first thing you will want to do is setup the HTML for your list page. This is done by editing the header and footer files in the data directory.

    Editing the header/footer

    Editing the header and footer for each of your list pages will setup the HTML that appears above and below the rankings. All HTML entered in header.txt will appear above the list; all HTML entered the footer.txt will appear below the list. Any HTML you want can be entered here. Typically your header will contain the opening html, title, and body tags, as well as links to accounts.cgi so that webmasters can add their sites to your list.

    Make sure you look over the sample header.txt and footer.txt included with the software before you begin making changes. This will give you an idea of what you will need to have in the header and footer files for your list to function.

  2. The next thing you will probably want to do is edit the templates for the accounts.cgi script. These are all located in the templates directory, and can be edited with any HTML editor. Each of the files contains normal HTML, and special items that the script recognizes. The special values that the script understands are surrounded by #%%#. You should never edit those values; you can move them around all you want, but don't change anything between the #%%#. Complete descriptions of each of the templates can be found on templates.html which is included with the software distribution.